Spent Waves
by Andraste
Summary: After Onslaught, Charles Xavier and Joseph begin to build some bridges.


For Alara's birthday, a Joseph story. There's not much to it, but it's all yours, and I do plan to write sequels in the future.

This story fits in after the events of UXM#337 - right after the whole Onslaught debacle. Old news, I know, but I've had this in my head for many years. It's possible that this doesn't mesh perfectly with canon up to that point (I'm not sure just what Joseph had and hadn't been told about his past by that stage) but this series has a sideways relationship with canon at the best of times. I'm sure no-one but me cares.

Disclaimer: They belong to Marvel, as always, although they never gave us follow-up on this. The title is also a Swinburne quote, from the same poem.

**Spent Waves**

By Andraste

_I am tired of tears and laughter,  
And men that laugh and weep;  
Of what may come hereafter  
For men that sow to reap;  
I am weary of days and hours,  
Blown buds of barren flowers,  
Desires and dreams and powers  
And everything but sleep."_

- Algernon Charles Swinburne, _The Garden of Proserpine._

By the time Joseph arrived, Xavier had come in out of the rain, at least. His clothes were still soaking wet, he was shivering and so pale with the cold that he'd almost gone blue, but he wasn't getting any wetter. It was a start.

When he returned from Salem Centre after an awkward and frustrating breakfast with Rogue, Joseph had heard the others discussing the fact that Xavier hadn't been down to eat - hadn't been down at all, was still alone in his ruined office. His students were 'giving him space,' which seemed to entail letting him sit staring out into the rain, dripping water on the carpet. He hadn't turned his head when Joseph entered the room.

The amnesiac had spent the morning wrestling with his instincts. He knew he shouldn't trust the gut feelings that had obviously led him astray in his past life, yet he couldn't help but think this whole crisis was a result of too _much_ space. Of course, an uninvited visit from the enemy who had been partly responsible for the destruction of half New York might not be considered helpful. At least the professor hadn't seemed hostile to him when they had met on the battlefield as allies, and had argued against Cable's plan partly out of fear for Joseph's life. The guilt and terror that he had felt down that brief mindlink weren't the kind of thing that should be left to fester.

Besides that, the idea of skipping meals bothered Joseph on some visceral level that he couldn't comprehend. When Xavier didn't appear at lunch, either, the deaged mutant had quietly extracted the cold roast beef and a bagel from the fridge and wandered up the stairs, avoiding the watchful gazes of the X-Men. He told himself that he was simply doing a good deed - the first of many to make up for whatever he had done before he lost his memory - and that he had no intention of interrogating Charles Xavier about what it was he was atoning _for_.

"Hello," he said, shutting the door behind him without taking his eyes off the disheveled figure by the balcony, "I brought you some lunch."

Xavier continued to say nothing as Joseph took in the ruined study, with its over-turned furniture and scattered paper. He put the plate down on the miraculously upright desk and perched on the damp surface, clicking his tongue.

"If the last time you ate was before that monster emerged, you must be starving by now. No-one can fight a battle properly without adequate fuel." Perhaps Xavier thought that the battle was already over, but Joseph had the feeling that it had hardly begun. "Professor ..."

"Don't call me that. Please."

A response. Quiet, almost monotonal, but there was something beneath the words. A hint of ... pain? Why should the title that he'd earned, and was by all accounts attached to, cause him pain? Unless it was not what was spoken, but the speaker. Entirely possible, in the circumstances. "What would you prefer, then?"

For the first time, Xavier turned his head, revealing hollow, red eyes in a shadowed face. "Charles. You ... used to call me Charles. I have no right to ask for that again, heaven knows, but I don't think that I can stand to ..." his voice trailed off into silence.

Joseph blinked, startled. Why would he have been on first-name terms with an enemy? "Charles, then." He repressed the urge to ask another direct question, and it occurred to him that Xavier might be deliberately distracting him from the more important issue of the moment. "You really should eat something."

The other man frowned. "You already said that. I am not hungry, thank you for offering." He sounded irritated rather than grateful, and Joseph swallowed a smile, deciding that this was a distinct improvement on monotonal indifference.

"I have no intention of leaving you here starving and soaking wet, Charles."

Joseph watched Xavier straighten his spine, and sensed that he was reassembling himself, or at least putting on the mask that he wore in public. He felt pleased with himself - company might at least prevent the crippled psychic sinking deeper into the hole he'd dug.

Xavier opened his mouth to say something, then shook his head, frowning. "I don't want to play games with you, Joseph, but I feel that I will be forced to do so if you do not leave."

Now it was Joseph's turn to frown. "I did not come here to play games, Charles Xavier. I do not think that this is a good time for you to be alone." He met the telepath's steady blue gaze with his own, and it was Xavier who blinked first. "You need to eat. And I," he said, finally admitting it to himself, "need some answers."

Sighing, Xavier stretched out a hand. Joseph hopped off the desk and handed him the plate. His chances of persuading Charles to change out of his wet clothes or move into a warmer room without a gaping hole in it seemed poor, but at least he might be able to do something to stop him catching pneumonia. Walking over to the fire place, he crouched down beside the wood, and discovered some miraculously dry fire-lighters and matches. Behind him, Xavier took a tentative bite of his bagel.

As he lit the fire, Joseph heard Xavier move his chair a little closer. "Forgive me for broaching a painful subject, but if I was your enemy before I lost my memories, and responsible for the monster that tore apart New York, then why did I call you Charles?"

"You ... were not always my enemy. Once, you were my closest friend. And you were not responsible for Onslaught. That sin was mine, and I am the one who must pay for it."

Joseph held his breath. That was more information in four sentences than any of the other X-Men had been willing to give him about his past in four days. He had to tread carefully, though. "How did that appalling creation come about? I remember very little of my past life, but I seem to recall that you are a good man." Naïve and foolish, perhaps, if his fragmentary feelings were anything to go by. Yet if Charles had a fault it was that he was too forgiving, a supposition borne out by his willingness to have this conversation with an enemy in the first place. "I must have done something truly awful, if you thought that you were justified in tearing my mind to pieces." That was what Xavier's students had told him, with hints and sideways glances. He had no choice but to believe them.

Charles Xavier sighed, and put down his lunch. "Perhaps. At the time I thought that I was only doing what was necessary. I know now that I was wrong."

Joseph fanned the new fire cautiously with his hands, and tried to restrain his impatience. "You're not going to tell me what I did, are you?"

"I don't believe that I am in a fit condition to make any decisions about your future, Joseph, and that includes decisions about revealing your past. I will tell you that you committed your crimes because you were ill, and that you will need help to avoid falling into the same traps again."

Joseph sat up, away from the fireplace, and thought. "You will allow me to stay here, and assist me?"

"I am afraid that it will not be possible for me to help you personally. I do not think that I could just now, and I must face trial for what I have done. I trust that the X-Men will support you, if you are willing to remain with them."

Joseph got to his feet and turned to face the other man. "You want to go on _trial_? Do you imagine that they will give you a fair hearing? That they will understand how a mutant could lose control of his abilities through little fault of his own?"

Charles Xavier's face went perfectly blank for an instant, then settled back into a resolutely calm and reasonable expression that he wore like armor. "Please, do not try to dissuade me. If I can accomplish anything now, it must be to shield other mutants, especially you, from the wrath of those devastated by the deaths of Earth's heroes. Whatever you may have done, your mind has been washed clean by amnesia. Build yourself a new life, in the certainty of your innocence."

Joseph flinched, recalling the room full of dead drug dealers, the looks on the faces of the children, both of which had haunted him in dreams ever since that day. Obviously, Xavier had not seen those things when their minds were tied to one another, and did not know that Joseph had _already_ tainted himself with the blood of his past life. But what good would it do to tell the devastated man now? Surely, it was better than the amnesiac's sins remain locked in his own heart, leaving Charles's mind free of one more useless burden? Surely he owed Xavier silence as much as he owed him goodness?

That moment had shown him how easy it was for a well-meaning man to do evil, and convinced him that he needed the help the X-Men seemed to be offering, even if he had reservations about their secrecy. Who was he to argue?

"I ... will do my best to live as you would wish me to live. But are you certain that you will not remain here? If you stayed, we could contact Cable again, perhaps find a way to restore your powers permanently ..."

He stopped speaking when he saw the horror on the other man's face. "I do not want my telepathy back, Joseph. Certainly not now, perhaps not ever again." He sounded wrung out, at the end of his rope. Joseph took in the lines at the corners of Xavier's eyes, the bruises beneath, the sickly pallor, and felt a jolt of remembered personal concern, a ghost memory from his other life. He did not want to see this former friend harmed. Better to make the best of the time they had than to badger him about staying.

"I do not know what led us to become enemies, Charles Xavier, but I still have an inkling of what led us to be friends. Do you believe that friendship is irreparably damaged?" It was not the question that he had planned to ask, but it seemed important.

"If you can begin to think of forgiving me for what I did to you ... no, I do not think that it is irreparably damaged. I hope that nothing is gone so far into the darkness that it cannot come back into the light."

"Then would you please move closer to the fire? As a gesture of friendship?"

Xavier looked startled, then smiled. Only for a second, but it was a beginning. He moved closer to the fire, which was even better. "Let me assure you, Joseph, you are not the man you used to be."

"I certainly hope that is the case; but how can you be certain?"

"He would not have tried to trick me into getting warm, or answering his questions. He would have gotten angry and shouted at me, and I'd probably have shouted back. I'm surprised at your relative subtlety."

Joseph raised an eyebrow. There weren't many alternatives to subtlety when no-one would tell you anything directly; he was learning to find out what he could by close observation. "And this man was your closest friend?"

"Oh, yes. There's a lot to be said for a good argument."

"Would a good argument encourage you to eat the rest of your lunch?" Charles looked as if he would have preferred a fight, but he swallowed another mouthful. Another little victory.

By the time Joseph left, hours later, some of the books were put away and the temperature in the room was several degrees above freezing.

The End 


End file.
